Dead Rising Triple Pack Review

Dead Rising Triple Pack Review

Dead Rising Triple Pack on PS4

Without a doubt, the Dead Rising Triple Pack offers you great bang for your buck, with three content-heavy games full of fun, zombie-slaying madness. This collection offers up three titles: Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2, and Dead Rising 2: Off The Record.You’ll spend tens of hours jumping into the blood-soaked shoes of Frank West and Chuck Greene as you round up hapless survivors, and craft crazy, wacky weapons to mow down the zombie hordes with.

From my time with the three remastered games, the good ‘ol Dead Rising beat-em-up gameplay remains just as fun as I remember it. Being let loose in a shopping mall, with clothing stores, banks, and coffee shops open for you to loot is a zombie apocalypse dream come true, and the weapon crafting possibilities provide endless fun for players trying to think of innovative ways to slay the undead. While the 72-hour timer system does restrict the player’s freedom in taking the time to explore the large malls, the Dead Rising story missions are still engaging and entertaining enough to keep you progressing through the game. Having a countdown timer means that you have to actually manage your time, and think about which side missions you want to tackle first, and consider whether you’ll have enough time to rush back to the security room to continue the main story. Missing the allocated time for a crucial plot point means it’s game over for you, and you’ll have to restart from the last save point you rested at. The restrictions of the timer might be a headache for some, but for me, it created a heightened sense of tension across all three titles. You either love it or you hate it.

With the 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second, the Dead Rising titles look better than ever… for the most part. Understandably, the original Dead Rising looks the roughest around the edges in the bunch, and the upscaled graphics really can’t hide the now-muddy textures from that game. However, I will say that the improved frame rate has done wonders for the gameplay. Aside from occasional frame rate dips in certain areas of the game, all three titles in the Triple Pack ran pretty smoothly, which is great, especially when you’re fighting 30 zombies at once. While Dead Rising’s HUD and UI are starting to look pretty dated and archaic in this re-release, the latest two entries have aged remarkably well. Fans looking to re-experience the original trilogy on the current generation of consoles will appreciate the graphical improvements delivered by the Triple Pack, especially the increased frame rate.

Chuck’s daughter looks as creepy as ever.

That said, if you’re a returning fan of the series, it’s important to keep in mind that this is a very barebones re-release of the three games. None of the previously released DLCs have been packaged with the Triple Pack, and that’s a damn shame. Case West and Case Zero, in particular, were side stories that filled in the missing links in the Dead Rising story, yet neither of these cases were anywhere to be found in the Triple Pack. It’s also worth noting that Capcom has not updated the controls for these games either. Bringing up your camera and aiming your weapons still feels awkward and clunky, and they’ll definitely take some getting used to. The only notable change here is the visual upgrade, so don’t go in expecting any supplementary material or new content to enrich the Dead Rising universe.

For the most part, all three games ran pretty much perfectly on the PS4, aside from a couple of silly graphical bugs that I encountered in Dead Rising 1. Character models tended to glitch out and distort in weird ways during one particular scene, though that’s the only time I noticed that issue. What’s more worrying, however, is that some PS4 players seem to be running into an issue where Dead Rising 2 and Off The Record just straight up wouldn’t load when you boot the game. There were more than a few times where I tried to launch the game, only to have it get stuck at the copyright screen and not progress. On the occasions where it did work, the game would linger on the Capcom logo for a good minute or so before finally bringing up the main menu screen. This issue seems to be present only on the PS4 versions of Dead Rising 2 and Off The Record, while the original title ran with no problems at all.

Overall, the Dead Rising Triple Pack is a great value bundle for newcomers of the series. While returning fans will certainly feel the sting of not being able to enjoy the ‘definitive’ Dead Rising experience due to the lack of DLC inclusion, the Triple Pack is currently the best way to acquaint yourself with the series before Dead Rising 4 launches at the end of the year.